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The Lips Brothers, Moritz and Oliver, are a creative duo based in Zurich, Switzerland | Photography, Film & Art Direction

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Evolving is always a good thing. After several years of "traditional" blogging, we wanted to refocus and put more time and effort into our photography and projects. You will only find selected shootings from the past in our Stories.

All of the previous articles we've written are now here in our archive.

Thoughts On Blogging In 2016

Photography by Moritz Lips. Written by Oliver Lips.

I don’t know if you have been following the recent tirade against bloggers from a couple of Vogue editors that was caused by this article. Alessandra Codinha, Vogue.com’s news editor writes: "[...] Rather than a celebration of any actual style, it seems to be all about turning up, looking ridiculous, posing, twitching in your seat as you check your social media feeds, fleeing, changing, repeating... It’s all pretty embarrassing.
[...] how particularly gross the whole practice of paid appearances and borrowed outfits looks. Looking for style among a bought-and-paid-for front row is like going to a strip club looking for romance".
Sally Singer, Vogue’s creative digital director, adds: “Please stop. Find another business. You are heralding the death of style.” Sarah Mower, Vogue.com’s chief critic, who calls bloggers participating in street-style photography “pathetic”, also adds: “You watch how many times the desperate troll up and down outside shows, in traffic, risking accidents even, in hopes of being snapped”. And finally, Runway’s director Nicole Phelps, adding her two cents on bloggers: “It’s not just sad, it’s distressing.”

I find it sad that a prestigious publishing house like Vogue (who probably is some kind of bible to a lot of young, fashion-interested people and bloggers) would condescend themselves to write something like that, just because some of them might feel “threatened” (or whatever you would call this outburst) by bloggers. It’s true that advertisers, rather than spending thousands for an ad in a magazine, have started paying bloggers to create good content in an authentic way that isn’t disappearing in a sea of other ad’s like it does in magazines.

Of course as with magazines, too, there are people who take blogging more seriously than others, but it doesn’t mean that you can generalize. It is a profession that came up with the internet and everyone is free to create his or her own blog and run it as it pleases them. Magazines have proven enough that some of the big bloggers / influencers attract clicks, views, followers and what not by featuring them on covers, in editorials or street style sections.
The fashion world is already such a secluded and by-invitation-only place that social media finally made it possible to peek behind the curtain and get an insider kind of view. I still find it impressive that a lot of bloggers, youtubers and instagrammers who aren't movie stars or musicians were able to gather a faithful followership, by uniting them with their passion.

On a much smaller scale something similar has been happening here in Switzerland, too. When NZZ (one of Switzerland’s biggest and most prestigious daily newspaper) launched their web-magazine NZZ Bellevue I was stoked to hear, not only because I am an avid reader, but also because I like their sense of style. We were invited to the launch party – for which I wore this look – and heard all about the great content that was soon going live.

The following day the article about the «20 Best Swiss Style Blogs», in which ours has been featured as well, went online and it's not like they made it very tasteful for any reader to follow us ("us" as in bloggers), as it had a rather belittling and ridicule undertone. Of course in the weeks to come they published more articles about bloggers, for example in relation to their Facebook-Likes and Instagram-Followers, which in the end only proofs that they, too, are trying to attract clicks onto their website with the help of bloggers.

Most of the bloggers I know operate by themselves or with another person and don't have a team of techs, editors, etc. to run their website. But if you have been in this business for some time - and haven't given up yet - I'm sure it's passion-driven and that counts for something, too. Moritz and I never started this blog with the intention of getting money out of it (and it is still not the main reason we do it), but it's something that happens over time and can be seen as a token of appreciation. I can't speak for others, but we'd never take on a paid project that wouldn't fit our style and could harm our integrity. We're not here to "sell" anything. It's a curation of things, looks, places and experiences we want to share with you!

I didn't write this article, because I am cranky or offended or wanted to point fingers on who said what, but I feel that in the year of 2016, where new industries are coming up everywhere, it feels ridiculous to even have this conversation. Just get over it.